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On-line Badminton Ladders ...

Hello All,

Well, with everyone always asking "where to play" and "who to play", I decided to start an on-line badminton ladders site so that players could find and challenge one another.

Anyone can create a ladder (for singles or doubles) - invite others to join the ladder and then challenge others within the ladder. Scores may be entered and the system will adjust ladder rankings, etc.

Currently, Canada and the United States are supported -- but if there is enough interest, other countries can be added.

So, if you want to start a badminton ladder in your city, town, school, workplace or club, have a look at:

That is interesting, I actually had a similar idea for gyms that implement a computer based queuing system. It would keep track of your wins and losses against various club members and assign points and essentially an open gym club ladder type thing.

The reason the link does not work is because the site was taken down. Why was the site taken down? ...

1. I sent requests to link to the badmintonladders.com web to EVERY provincial and state level badminton association in Canada and the United States -- in that one year period, only one provinicial association (Alberta) set-up a link (in a brief notice that was quicly buried).

2. I e-mail the president of Badminton Canada (no reply) and for six months e-mailed the person that looked after their web site -- no link or mention of badmintonladders.com was ever put on the Badminton Canada web site -- however they are now asking for money...

3. On April 1st, 2010 after one year of operation -- I pulled the plug.

Clearly -- those in charge of badminton have little interest in promoting the game or linking to sites that promote the game -- had the site been "strung" (excuse the pun) to tennis, it probably would have had links posted on nearly every provinical and state level tennis site out there -- in short, my experience has shown that the powers to be have little interest in helping the sport of badminton -- at least in North America.

Yes -- I contacted individual badminton clubs and associations -- either no reply or they refused to put up links to the ladder site. Again, I think that badminton seems to be unique in the world of sport -- those that play like to keep it "closed" -- the irony is that the sport will never see the exposure that others enjoy, ie: tennis.

... badminton seems to be unique in the world of sport -- those that play like to keep it "closed" --

Has that truly been your experience?

That is what people say about badminton around here, but I thought it was just because the sport is relatively small on the East Coast. Surely a "member's only" mentality can't be a traced to something innate in badminton players, can it?

Sadly, yes, that has been MY experience. As I said earlier, I would try to contact associations no more than once a month (to avoid being too annoying) -- in a one year time frame, I had only one link posted to the badminton ladders site -- the only conclusion I can draw is that clubs and associations did not seem to want more members -- or worse, did not want to offer members access to a system that could have connected them with other [local] players. I still love the game, but my one-year effort in trying to promote it left a bitter taste ... in particular, the lack of support from Badminton Canada.

As an aside -- anyone interested in setting up a national nylon badminton league? As much as playing with feather is great -- wouldn't it be great if a league existed that was based on nylon only? -- just and idea -- please don't blast me for liking nylon (but I do!).